The trees are swinging from side to side, thunder is cracking, and lightning illuminates the sky. The two kids quickly duck into an old shed and gasp for breath.

"Whew. That was close." One says and looks at his friend.

"Yeah! Did you see how close the lightning hit the ground?" The other boy answers.

The two boys look around.

"Why do you think there is a shed out here in the middle of nowhere?" The first one asks.

"Maybe this area was a farm? I don't know."

"Maybe it is infested with poisonous snakes and should not be entered by two boys?"

The two boys almost jump into each others arms.

"What was that, Hans?" The second boy speaks up.

"I...I don't know, Carl."

"Can't you close the door behind you, dear Carl?" The voice again fills the shed.

Carl turns to do it, but Hans stops him.

"Are you crazy? We should keep it open so that we can escape when necessary."

An evil laughter erupts from a dark corner and the door slams shut. The boys scream in terror and run over to the door. The pulling, kicking and yelling for help continues for what seems like hours. Hans suddenly stops and looks behind him.

"Carl? Who or what do you think is also in here?" Hans looks around with wide eyes.

"I don't..."

His words are cut off by a creaking sound and a shuffling. Carl jumps onto Hans' back.

"KILL IT! KILL IT!" He screams.

"KILL WHAT? I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING!" Hans screams back.

The two wait for a while and then Hans decides to throw Carl off of him. Carl hits the ground with a loud thump, but he jumps up quickly.

"SOMETHING TOUCHED ME!"

"You have to be kidding me. There is nothing there!" Hans snorts.

"I felt it. Oh, I felt it. It was so cold."

Hans raises his eyebrow and looks at the spot where Carl was laying just seconds before. It was illuminated by a quick flash of lightning, but there was nothing.

"You know what? You are being frightened by your own immagination." Hans smiles sarcastically.

"Now, now. Don't be rude to your friend."

Carl tries to jump onto Hans' back again, but the latter effectively keeps him off this time.

"Will you calm down? It is just the wind that makes it sound like someone else is here." Hans shakes his head at Carl.

"Are...you...sure?" Carl gulps.

"Yeah, it..."

Hans freezes and his eyes grows wide. The previous lightning flash had just revealed a dark cloaked figure that is standing in a corner and watching them. Another flash of lightning confirms what he just saw. It is his turn to yell, but instead of jumpig on his friend's back, he hammers at the door.

"Hans? It is coming closer."

"DON'T TELL ME! JUST WATCH IT!"

Carl watches as it seems to glide closer and closer. A flash of lightning, and the figure is...gone?

"Hans, I...it is gone."

Hans turns around and looks for the cloaked figure.

"Okay. Let's see if we can find anything to pry open the door." Hans smiles triumphantly at his idea.

The two boys start to make their way deeper into the shed. They walk and walk, but the shed seems to become larger and larger with each step that they take.

"Carl! We are not getting anywhere!" Hans screams frantically. "Carl?"

Hans stops and looks around. Where did he go? Lightning flashes again and Hans observes two cloaked figures sitting at a table and playing cards.

"What is going on here?" He whispers to himself.

He begins to creep closer, but one of the figure gets up and glides over to him. It reaches out and grabs him. Hans' eyes grow wide. Suddenly, it begins to shake him while yelling: "Wake up! Wake up!"

The trees are swinging from side to side, thunder is cracking, and lightning illuminates the sky. The two kids quickly duck into an old shed…

“I told you it would thunderstorm,” Grant shouted as he stood up inside the shed and brushed himself off. There was mud all over the ground, as water was pooling inside it. The interior was void of furniture, and the rotting wooden boards of the walls and roof were very shrunken and weathered and stained with time.

“Ok, but you must admit that it was sunny when we left,” Stacy replied.

“But the weather man said that it would rain.”

“Ah, Mom’s gonna’ be so mad.”

“Not if it stops thundering before we go home,” Grant replied. “We just need to wait out the storm here. Stacy?” Stacy had wandered over to a doorway in the shed, it opened into a dark cellar with the first few rotting wooden steps barley visible, yielding to a thick darkness that lay beyond. Stacy stepped forward. “Stacy, no!” Grant leapt forward to grab her, but it was too late. They both tumbled down the stairs, and they could hear the wood crunching behind them.

When they looked up, they were both shocked beyond comprehension. Before them was a room, a well-lit room, with cream-colored wallpaper and smooth hardwood flooring with a decorative blue carpet over it. In one corner of the small room, there was a desk and chair. The desk had a mirror on it. In the other corner, there was a bed with white sheets, upon which there sat a girl. She was young - perhaps twelve or thirteen - and was pale and looked weak. The skin under her eyes was purple, and her red hair was frizzled and her arms skeletally thin. Neither Grant nor Stacy moved out of fear. They had no idea what was going on, and so they remained frozen, not even comprehending what was going on. They appeared to be hidden under the stairs (which were now new and sturdy), under some coats and blankets. A single dim lightbulb overhead lit up the room.

“Has she spoken at all?” A man’s voice could be heard from above them, outside of the room. It was intentionally low, as if he were afraid that someone should overhear him.

“No, not since your last visit,” a woman’s voice replied. She sounded worried and saddened.

“Ok, let me talk to her,” the man ended, and Grant and Stacy heard the door above them creak open and then the footsteps of the man walking down the stairs. He soon came into view, and though his back was turned to them, they saw that he was very smartly dressed, wearing a long black coat and a black top hat. He carroed a large leather bag in his gloved right hand. His hair was grey, and, from the perspective of Grant and Stacy, it appears as if he might have lamb-chop sideburns.

“How are you,” he began softly as he sat down on the bed next to the little girl, removing his top hat and placing it beside him. He did, in fact, have the large sideburns, and his hair was of a salt-and-pepper color: black, but starting to turn grey. He also wore a smart black suit and bowtie, as well. He placed his bag upon his lap and began to open it. “Why did you do that to your sister,” he asked politely but with a blank face as he reached inside his bag and pulled out a stethoscope. The little girl did not respond: she just stared up blankly at the ceiling.

“I think you may have hurt her feelings,” the doctor continued as he attached the stethoscope to his ears and placed the metal disk at the end to her chest. “You really hurt her, you know.” The girl did not respond, and the (presumed) doctor put the stethoscope back in the black leather bag. “Are you feeling all right?” She still did not respond. The doctor strained his lips and then appeared to lighten up.

“You know what? My assistant, here, has a surprise for you.” As he spoke, a young man in a grey suit walked down the stairs, carrying a heavy object. He set it on the desk, and then began to tamper with it. Within minutes, the device had been established: it was a large brown box with some metal cylinder at the top, a large horn protruding from it. On the side, in gold lettering, was inscribed: “Edison.” Now, the girl seemed intrigued, she even sat up.

“What is it,” she asked weakly.

“It’s a music machine,” the doctor replied, smiling. “Watch.” He nodded to his assistant, who moved some lever, and the horizontal cylinder began to spin. The assistant lowered the horn to the cylinder, and a distinct static sound began to reverberate around the room. She seemed startled at first, but then crept near to her desk, curious and a little bit in awe.

“Far away one spring I saw a flower on the shore…” The fuzzy sound of a man’s singing voice began to play. The girl listened to the song quietly, and the doctors did not say a word, but studied her expression contently. Then, when the song ended, the doctor next to the girl on the bed spoke again.

“Would you like to make a recording of your own,” he asked kindly. The girl looked at him with a blank expression, and by that slight gesture acknowledged that she had comprehend his inquiry. “Dr. Heaton, here, is putting on a little device that will remember what we say, and repeat it to us, just as we said it. Isn’t that neat? Watch.” He nodded to the assistant, who repositioned the horn and then set the needle down.

“My name is Dr. Gordian,” he stated loudly, smiling. The assistant lifted the needle and moved it back.

“My name is Dr. Gordian,” the phonograph repeated in a much fuzzier sound quality. The assistant then took the cylinder record off and scrubbed it hard, placing it back on the machine.

“So,” the doctor turned back to the girl. “Say whatever you want, and this device will record it. Heaton,” he nodded. The girl did not say anything as the device began to record.

“Um, let’s start with your name, shall we?” The doctor finally suggested. The girl did not say anything, she only stared at the machine silently. The doctor tried several more times to get the girl engaged, but then gave up. The assistant ended the recording and reset the machine. “We will leave this here if you would like to use it,” the doctor stated as he got up and placed his top hat back on. “Ask your mother for assistance in commanding it.” They walked up the stairs and closed the door most of the way behind them. Then, a quiet conversation ensued between the old doctor and the girl’s (presumed) mother.

“So,” the mother asked eagerly in a whispery voice. “How is she?”

“Mm,” the doctor let out something between a grunt and a sign. “I have no idea why she did those things to her sister and father. Some people just develop a contaminated mind.”

“She is not insane,” the mother barked back in a whispery voice, but a harsher one this time. “How is her illness,” she asked, much more calm in tone.”

“Not well,” the doctor replied. “The influenza is progressing rapidly. Unless we take her to the hospital, I doubt she will survive the week.”

“No!” The mother protested. “The hospitals are full of sick people! Besides, she will become worse in the winter cold…It is best that you leave.” Silence ensued. “Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Smith.” Grant and Stacy were not paying much attention to this conversation, however, because they were staring at the girl on the bed. She had sat up after the doctors left the room, and now she was looking straight at them, smiling a wide grin. Grant and Stacy shot awake. They were breathing heavily, and sweating.

“Ah,” Grant exclaimed. “What was that?” He felt his head - it hurt to touch. Light was streaming into the once-again distraught cellar, making its way inside through various large holes in the ceiling.

“You saw it too? I don’t know, but it was weird.”

“How do we get out of here, now? Stacy?”

“Look,” Stacy replied. She was pointing down at the rubble. There, under some boards and pebbles, was the same phonograph that they had both seen earlier. Without talking, they took it out and opened it. They knew not what drew them to do so, or why they seemed to both have their minds set on uncovering it, but they did it anyway. They took off the top: a dusty, black cylinder record was still there.

“I think I saw how he set it up,” Stacy stated as she twisted a crank on the side, as Grant searched for the horn. He found it, and once it was all set up, Stacy set the needle down on the spinning cylinder. For a while, there was nothing but static. But then, the eerie, sickly-sounding voice of the young girl became audible.

“My name is Sarah Smith,” she began in a creepy, almost-giddy tone. “I am twelve years old, and the doctors gave me this device for recording sounds” Cchh, cchh, cchh…Went the record with each rotation. “I did not tell them why I did those things to Daddy, or to Mary, because they would not believe me.” Cchh, cchh, cchh… “I did it, because I knew I was dying, and I wanted to take someone…with me.” She did not sound upset, but on the contrary was becoming more and more giddy with excitement as the recording played on.

“I got Daddy during the war,” she giggled. “And Mary fell down the stairs that same day…” Cchh, cchh, cchh… “Mommy died of fever.” Cchh, cchh, cchh… “But I saw new friends to play with today: Grant and Stacy.” Both of them froze in fear, the hair stood up on the back of their necks, and the most unfortunate and dastardly of chills ran down their backs. They looked up, and there, standing, was a grey, rotting corpse of a young girl in a bed dress. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?”

Grant and Stacy did not even scream as they sprinted out of the cellar. They nearly trampled each other to death as they attempted to climb the debris to get to the surface. Once there, they ran and ran, and it was fear alone that drove them: they were unconscious of all other thought…

“I found something,” Miller shouted to Tom. The two had been searching for the missing children, Grant and Stacy, all afternoon, and now they had stumbled upon an old shack.

“What is it?” Tom replied.

“It’s an old phonograph.”

“Play it.” Miller turned the crank and set the needle. The two friends happily listened to the song that ensued, and then went home for the day: “Far away one spring I saw a flower on the shore…”

#horror